


The Two Versions

by The_Persian_Slipper



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John's blog, M/M, Meta, Sherlock Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 11:41:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Persian_Slipper/pseuds/The_Persian_Slipper
Summary: I love exploring every little detail about John's blog in the show and online. Here's something John hasn't shown anyone.This is a transcript of my original post on tumblr.





	The Two Versions

****

Let’s go back to The Empty Hearse, to the scene where Mary is reading John’s blog out loud. This is the morning after the whole “Not Dead” fiasco and John is busy not shaving for Sherlock Holmes. Much has been written about this scene, but I found something that, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been discussed yet -** the content of the post Mary is reading and what that means for John’s blog**.

Let’s look at the screen that Mary is reading from:

If you’re familiar with the blog (and if you’re not, go study it right now!) you’ll notice it’s a little bit different from the layout we see on the actual blog. You can see that Mary is logged on as Watson. The buttons next to it say “Log Out”, “Your Dashboard” and “Create a new Post”. The text below has a scroll bar which you don’t have on the real site. 

My point - This is the blog editor and Mary is reading from an unpublished entry. And what’s so interesting about this entry?

First things first: The scene starts with Mary sitting on their bed, reading John’s aloud blog, eyes glued to the screen. She is using a very dramatic, solemn tone while she reads, but she has a teasing smile on her face. She’s the cat that got the milk. John is less than happy.

> **Mary:** ”His movements were so silent. So furtive, he reminded me of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent.”
> 
> **JOHN:** You what?
> 
> **MARY: **“I couldn’t help thinking what an amazing criminal he’d make if he turned his talents against the law.”
> 
> **JOHN: **Don’t read that.
> 
> **MARY: **The famous blog, finally!
> 
> **JOHN:** Come on – that’s …
> 
> **MARY: **… ancient history, yes, I know. But it’s _not_, though, is it, because he’s …

So, did John give her his consent to read this? Did John “Has Trust Issues” Watson give her the password to his blog? I would argue that no, she was reading it without his consent. John was obviously uncomfortable when he realized what was happening. He did say _“Don’t read that”_ and not _“Don’t read that out loud.” _

Mary’s next line is also interesting “The famous blog, _finally_!” It’s not like the blog isn’t public. Online… And we know she knew about the blog, you can see her comments in posts after Sherlock’s fall from St. Barts.

She isn’t talking about the online bits of the blog. She is talking about the unpublished entries, the parts of the blog that are accessible only to John. And from the next two lines of the dialogue you can infer that this isn’t the first time they have had this conversation. I think Mary had already asked John to see the unpublished posts (has he told her about them before?) and was denied (_It’s ancient history_). And isn’t she happy she is reading them now. 

So I think that John was logged in on his blog, the one he had said he was closing because he was “moving on”. But then Sherlock came back from the dead. Despite John’s angry reaction, he didn’t move on. He forgot to propose to his girlfriend and logged in to his blog again. He then decide to get up and shave away his mornstache before going to work without logging out. Mary took that chance to finally read his unpublished posts and openly tease John about them. Rude.

“But now we know that Mary had mad secret agent skills. She could have used them to get in the blog!” Yeah, but why would she out herself to John by reading the entries out loud? He knows she is reading from an unpublished post and he knows it’s password protected. I’ll say that he didn’t want Mary to read the posts so he didn’t give her the password. The only explanation is that he forgot to log off before getting up to shave.

And why do I keep saying the post is unpublished? 

**Because this is a different version of a published post**. And we can see why John chose to publish the other one and save this one for himself.

The other post is published on the blog as “The Speckled Blonde”. This is an adaptation of the ACD story “The Speckled Band”,where Holmes and Watson have to spend a night sitting alone in a darkened bedroom, waiting for the killer to strike.

If you remember, this case happened during A Scandal in Belgravia,after _“The Greek Interpreter”_ (the client from that case, C Melas, is commenting on this case) and before_ “Sherlock Holmes Baffled”_ (the wife of the man found dead in the boot of a car asks for help in the comments). During S2, where you could argue that John and Sherlock are in top shape as far as their dynamic goes. Here is the published entry:

And here is what Mary is reading:

I added a blue line next to the part of the text that coincides. In green and pink are the parts that don’t. Mary is reading from a paragraph that’s not in the published version, and she is clearly teasing John about it. He is waxing poetics about Sherlock’s movements while on the case. You can see that the published version is much more clinical in its description. It also mentions that they were supposed to spend a night in the client’s bedroom but that turned out not to be necessary, while the unpublished post jumps that and goes straight to the autopsy.

We don’t know if there are more matches between the two posts. The last line of the paragraph marked in blue and the next paragraph visible are different. But we are clearly meant to notice the first pink paragraph, the one that Mary reads out loud.

(The only thing I can’t explain is why the editor marks the date as “Tuesday”. Could it be because that’s the current date?)

So my theory is - **The blog has a second, private, unpublished set of posts that are only accessible to John.** The drier, more objective ones he writes for the public and the more flourished ones he writes for himself (only himself, Mary…). He had abandoned the blog, but as soon as Sherlock returned, he was logging in again, looking at the unpublished version.

It’s not like duality is a theme with John, or anything.


End file.
